Bob Cleek

Nicely done and in record time! Now on to the next one... a scratch-build? Something from one of John Gardner's small craft building books? It's just my opinion, I think there is an overabundance of large Seventeenth and Eighteenth century ships of the line models and a dearth of simple small working craft models in this world. The small craft models look a lot better on a home bookshelf, as well. You will build better models in the future as your skills develop, as have we all to one degree or another, but this one will always have a special place in your heart, I'm sure.

What Thukydides said. Very fine sandpaper. Use a hard sanding block so all you sand is the very edge itself.
 
Pumice or rottenstone will restore whatever level of finish, matte to gloss, that you want, but it will take a lot of rubbing to remove a masking tape "lip." Better to start with sandpaper in the 400 grit range and go finer from there.
 
The most effective way to avoid masking "lips" is to use a very thin masking tape (Tamiya or 3M Fineline) and apply your paint in multiple thin coats. When the paint is dry, carefully sand the edge down a bit before you remove the tape.
 
It's never an exact science. Not infrequently, you'll tear up some paint along the edge when removing the tape, or discover a spot where the tape "bled under" the tape, and so on. In such cases, there's often nothing for it but to carefully remove the defect by sanding and do the darn thing over and over again until it comes out right. This is one of the jobs that makes having an airbrush really worth the cost.
 

Exactly. In fact, not even a "non-standard spelling," since there was no such thing as "standard spelling" back then! They just spelled phonetically and the word was "sounded out" by the reader. There were some efforts to standardize spelling prior to the 15th century, but standardized spelling didn't really start to catch on until the printing press became common. Manuscript writers continued with the phonetic spelling method for quite some time after. 

Fiddling with the galley cabinets today.


 

 
michael

I have just used a common modeling knife and lightly scraped with the blade perpendicular to the surface. Just go slow and be careful to nhit only the high spots along the edge of the paint.

What Thukydides said. Very fine sandpaper. Use a hard sanding block so all you sand is the very edge itself.
 
Pumice or rottenstone will restore whatever level of finish, matte to gloss, that you want, but it will take a lot of rubbing to remove a masking tape "lip." Better to start with sandpaper in the 400 grit range and go finer from there.
 
The most effective way to avoid masking "lips" is to use a very thin masking tape (Tamiya or 3M Fineline) and apply your paint in multiple thin coats. When the paint is dry, carefully sand the edge down a bit before you remove the tape.
 
It's never an exact science. Not infrequently, you'll tear up some paint along the edge when removing the tape, or discover a spot where the tape "bled under" the tape, and so on. In such cases, there's often nothing for it but to carefully remove the defect by sanding and do the darn thing over and over again until it comes out right. This is one of the jobs that makes having an airbrush really worth the cost.
 

What Thukydides said. Very fine sandpaper. Use a hard sanding block so all you sand is the very edge itself.
 
Pumice or rottenstone will restore whatever level of finish, matte to gloss, that you want, but it will take a lot of rubbing to remove a masking tape "lip." Better to start with sandpaper in the 400 grit range and go finer from there.
 
The most effective way to avoid masking "lips" is to use a very thin masking tape (Tamiya or 3M Fineline) and apply your paint in multiple thin coats. When the paint is dry, carefully sand the edge down a bit before you remove the tape.
 
It's never an exact science. Not infrequently, you'll tear up some paint along the edge when removing the tape, or discover a spot where the tape "bled under" the tape, and so on. In such cases, there's often nothing for it but to carefully remove the defect by sanding and do the darn thing over and over again until it comes out right. This is one of the jobs that makes having an airbrush really worth the cost.
 

Exactly. In fact, not even a "non-standard spelling," since there was no such thing as "standard spelling" back then! They just spelled phonetically and the word was "sounded out" by the reader. There were some efforts to standardize spelling prior to the 15th century, but standardized spelling didn't really start to catch on until the printing press became common. Manuscript writers continued with the phonetic spelling method for quite some time after. 

One job in a work house (a residence of last resort for the destitute) was to pick apart old rope for the fibers.  'Guess there was always a market for inferior (thus cheaper) oakum.  Note that the specification for the better stuff implies that the cheaper stuff was in use as well.  Hmmm, just as there are cheaper brands of paint (one often gets one what pays for, as the cheaper ceiling paint I used once was so bad I had to paint over it with more expensive quality paint).  
 
  There was a story about a painter who 'stretched' white latex paint by adding some water while painting a Church steeple.  When done, there were dark clouds and lightning as a furious rainstorm washed off most of what had been applied to the steeple ... and a voice from above was heard to say, "Repaint, and thin no more !"

"Tow" is "short and coarse fibers of little value separated from the longer and more valuable fibers through hackling in the manufacture of rope. Tow is occasionally used in the manufacture of inferior qualities of rope." (International Maritime Dictionary, rene de Kerchove, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand and Reinhold Co. 1961, Litton Educational Publishing]
 
"Tow" is also the short bits of fiber that break off of natural fiber rope, particularly hemp and sisal ("Manila") rope. On a large square-rigger, a lot of tow would find its way to the deck and collect in wet piles and muck things up. Hence the bosun's call, "Sweepers, man your brooms. Clean sweep down fore and aft." Another general meaning of "tow" is simply "worn out rope."
 
"Tow" was sometimes collected and saved for use in canvas pockets for padding of various sorts in rigging and so on, and for caulking material when mixed with tar to make oakum. Worn out or rotten line was often recycled into oakum as well. Quality oakum, however, was made not from lengths of worn-out line or "tow," but from new, long hemp strands. The highest quality new hemp line or oakum is made from the strong fibers from center of the stalks of the cannabis plant, which are whitish in color. (Oakum used by plumbers to caulk iron pipe joints is usually made from tarred jute or burlap.)
 
"Fibers and flyings" are what fill the air in a textile mill or rope walk and if you've ever been in a running textile mill, you will know that there is a huge cloud of fibers, little bits and pieces of broken fiber and dust, and "flyings" which are longer thin threads thrown off in the milling or spinning process, which must be continually cleaned up as they pose a large fire hazard. "Flyings" from the mills and ropewalks were used to make high quality oakum. 
 
Oakum is made by taking long fibers soaked in thick pine tar and simply twisting and rolling them into "ropes." The caulker has to prepare the oakum by unraveling lengths of the loosely twisted fiber from the loose ball (or "bale") of oakum and rolling the pine tar-soaked strands back and forth between the palm of his hand and the top of his thigh. (If you see a guy in the boatyard with his pants covered with tar on the front of his upper leg, he's a caulker! )
 
So, "The white ocham to be from flying & not from ground toes or decaid White ropes." means, "The white oakum specified here is to be made from mill flyings of the top-quality virgin white fiber of the plant and not from ground up tow or recycled rotten white hemp rope."
 
Quality oakum will result in a longer-lasting caulking job. Using old, weak fiber from worn out, rotten, or "decaid" rope will rot and decay in short order. The Admiralty wanted to use "the good stuff" because they didn't want to have to recaulk in short order because the stuff used was rotten to begin with.
 
Caulking mallet, caulking irons, and untarred "bale" of white hemp for making up oakum. See: Oakum - Wikipedia
 

"Tow" is "short and coarse fibers of little value separated from the longer and more valuable fibers through hackling in the manufacture of rope. Tow is occasionally used in the manufacture of inferior qualities of rope." (International Maritime Dictionary, rene de Kerchove, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand and Reinhold Co. 1961, Litton Educational Publishing]
 
"Tow" is also the short bits of fiber that break off of natural fiber rope, particularly hemp and sisal ("Manila") rope. On a large square-rigger, a lot of tow would find its way to the deck and collect in wet piles and muck things up. Hence the bosun's call, "Sweepers, man your brooms. Clean sweep down fore and aft." Another general meaning of "tow" is simply "worn out rope."
 
"Tow" was sometimes collected and saved for use in canvas pockets for padding of various sorts in rigging and so on, and for caulking material when mixed with tar to make oakum. Worn out or rotten line was often recycled into oakum as well. Quality oakum, however, was made not from lengths of worn-out line or "tow," but from new, long hemp strands. The highest quality new hemp line or oakum is made from the strong fibers from center of the stalks of the cannabis plant, which are whitish in color. (Oakum used by plumbers to caulk iron pipe joints is usually made from tarred jute or burlap.)
 
"Fibers and flyings" are what fill the air in a textile mill or rope walk and if you've ever been in a running textile mill, you will know that there is a huge cloud of fibers, little bits and pieces of broken fiber and dust, and "flyings" which are longer thin threads thrown off in the milling or spinning process, which must be continually cleaned up as they pose a large fire hazard. "Flyings" from the mills and ropewalks were used to make high quality oakum. 
 
Oakum is made by taking long fibers soaked in thick pine tar and simply twisting and rolling them into "ropes." The caulker has to prepare the oakum by unraveling lengths of the loosely twisted fiber from the loose ball (or "bale") of oakum and rolling the pine tar-soaked strands back and forth between the palm of his hand and the top of his thigh. (If you see a guy in the boatyard with his pants covered with tar on the front of his upper leg, he's a caulker! )
 
So, "The white ocham to be from flying & not from ground toes or decaid White ropes." means, "The white oakum specified here is to be made from mill flyings of the top-quality virgin white fiber of the plant and not from ground up tow or recycled rotten white hemp rope."
 
Quality oakum will result in a longer-lasting caulking job. Using old, weak fiber from worn out, rotten, or "decaid" rope will rot and decay in short order. The Admiralty wanted to use "the good stuff" because they didn't want to have to recaulk in short order because the stuff used was rotten to begin with.
 
Caulking mallet, caulking irons, and untarred "bale" of white hemp for making up oakum. See: Oakum - Wikipedia
 

Exactly. In fact, not even a "non-standard spelling," since there was no such thing as "standard spelling" back then! They just spelled phonetically and the word was "sounded out" by the reader. There were some efforts to standardize spelling prior to the 15th century, but standardized spelling didn't really start to catch on until the printing press became common. Manuscript writers continued with the phonetic spelling method for quite some time after. 

I agree with Bob; an archaic non-standard spelling of 'tow'. And decaid is 'decayed' or worn out.

"Tow" is "short and coarse fibers of little value separated from the longer and more valuable fibers through hackling in the manufacture of rope. Tow is occasionally used in the manufacture of inferior qualities of rope." (International Maritime Dictionary, rene de Kerchove, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand and Reinhold Co. 1961, Litton Educational Publishing]
 
"Tow" is also the short bits of fiber that break off of natural fiber rope, particularly hemp and sisal ("Manila") rope. On a large square-rigger, a lot of tow would find its way to the deck and collect in wet piles and muck things up. Hence the bosun's call, "Sweepers, man your brooms. Clean sweep down fore and aft." Another general meaning of "tow" is simply "worn out rope."
 
"Tow" was sometimes collected and saved for use in canvas pockets for padding of various sorts in rigging and so on, and for caulking material when mixed with tar to make oakum. Worn out or rotten line was often recycled into oakum as well. Quality oakum, however, was made not from lengths of worn-out line or "tow," but from new, long hemp strands. The highest quality new hemp line or oakum is made from the strong fibers from center of the stalks of the cannabis plant, which are whitish in color. (Oakum used by plumbers to caulk iron pipe joints is usually made from tarred jute or burlap.)
 
"Fibers and flyings" are what fill the air in a textile mill or rope walk and if you've ever been in a running textile mill, you will know that there is a huge cloud of fibers, little bits and pieces of broken fiber and dust, and "flyings" which are longer thin threads thrown off in the milling or spinning process, which must be continually cleaned up as they pose a large fire hazard. "Flyings" from the mills and ropewalks were used to make high quality oakum. 
 
Oakum is made by taking long fibers soaked in thick pine tar and simply twisting and rolling them into "ropes." The caulker has to prepare the oakum by unraveling lengths of the loosely twisted fiber from the loose ball (or "bale") of oakum and rolling the pine tar-soaked strands back and forth between the palm of his hand and the top of his thigh. (If you see a guy in the boatyard with his pants covered with tar on the front of his upper leg, he's a caulker! )
 
So, "The white ocham to be from flying & not from ground toes or decaid White ropes." means, "The white oakum specified here is to be made from mill flyings of the top-quality virgin white fiber of the plant and not from ground up tow or recycled rotten white hemp rope."
 
Quality oakum will result in a longer-lasting caulking job. Using old, weak fiber from worn out, rotten, or "decaid" rope will rot and decay in short order. The Admiralty wanted to use "the good stuff" because they didn't want to have to recaulk in short order because the stuff used was rotten to begin with.
 
Caulking mallet, caulking irons, and untarred "bale" of white hemp for making up oakum. See: Oakum - Wikipedia
 

"Tow" is "short and coarse fibers of little value separated from the longer and more valuable fibers through hackling in the manufacture of rope. Tow is occasionally used in the manufacture of inferior qualities of rope." (International Maritime Dictionary, rene de Kerchove, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand and Reinhold Co. 1961, Litton Educational Publishing]
 
"Tow" is also the short bits of fiber that break off of natural fiber rope, particularly hemp and sisal ("Manila") rope. On a large square-rigger, a lot of tow would find its way to the deck and collect in wet piles and muck things up. Hence the bosun's call, "Sweepers, man your brooms. Clean sweep down fore and aft." Another general meaning of "tow" is simply "worn out rope."
 
"Tow" was sometimes collected and saved for use in canvas pockets for padding of various sorts in rigging and so on, and for caulking material when mixed with tar to make oakum. Worn out or rotten line was often recycled into oakum as well. Quality oakum, however, was made not from lengths of worn-out line or "tow," but from new, long hemp strands. The highest quality new hemp line or oakum is made from the strong fibers from center of the stalks of the cannabis plant, which are whitish in color. (Oakum used by plumbers to caulk iron pipe joints is usually made from tarred jute or burlap.)
 
"Fibers and flyings" are what fill the air in a textile mill or rope walk and if you've ever been in a running textile mill, you will know that there is a huge cloud of fibers, little bits and pieces of broken fiber and dust, and "flyings" which are longer thin threads thrown off in the milling or spinning process, which must be continually cleaned up as they pose a large fire hazard. "Flyings" from the mills and ropewalks were used to make high quality oakum. 
 
Oakum is made by taking long fibers soaked in thick pine tar and simply twisting and rolling them into "ropes." The caulker has to prepare the oakum by unraveling lengths of the loosely twisted fiber from the loose ball (or "bale") of oakum and rolling the pine tar-soaked strands back and forth between the palm of his hand and the top of his thigh. (If you see a guy in the boatyard with his pants covered with tar on the front of his upper leg, he's a caulker! )
 
So, "The white ocham to be from flying & not from ground toes or decaid White ropes." means, "The white oakum specified here is to be made from mill flyings of the top-quality virgin white fiber of the plant and not from ground up tow or recycled rotten white hemp rope."
 
Quality oakum will result in a longer-lasting caulking job. Using old, weak fiber from worn out, rotten, or "decaid" rope will rot and decay in short order. The Admiralty wanted to use "the good stuff" because they didn't want to have to recaulk in short order because the stuff used was rotten to begin with.
 
Caulking mallet, caulking irons, and untarred "bale" of white hemp for making up oakum. See: Oakum - Wikipedia
 

I wouldn't bet on it not being noticeable, particularly when the rest of the furniture is installed. 34 inches is the rule of thumb because when a boat heels under sail, the sink has to be at least that height to be useable when the sink is on the leeward side. Many galleys have "butt belts" the user can employ to strap themselves in or even bars that drop in behind the user that can be used as a seat or to brace against in a seaway. A sink that much lower would be noticed by an experienced seaman. It might not be that big of a deal in an RV that sits level, but not in a boat that may be sailing on her ear half the time.
 
Additionally, it looks like the sink is going to be below the waterline even at 34 inches and so it needs all the height it can get to make space for the sink drain elbow, hand pump, and the attendant plumbing with an anti-siphon loop and check valve.
 
I wouldn't have bothered to comment on something I realize many would think was picky, but this model has been so perfectly done, I, for one at least, would hate to see a compromise like this one, even if you had to look inside to see it.  
 
That said, I trust Michael's impeccable judgment in the matter.

I wouldn't bet on it not being noticeable, particularly when the rest of the furniture is installed. 34 inches is the rule of thumb because when a boat heels under sail, the sink has to be at least that height to be useable when the sink is on the leeward side. Many galleys have "butt belts" the user can employ to strap themselves in or even bars that drop in behind the user that can be used as a seat or to brace against in a seaway. A sink that much lower would be noticed by an experienced seaman. It might not be that big of a deal in an RV that sits level, but not in a boat that may be sailing on her ear half the time.
 
Additionally, it looks like the sink is going to be below the waterline even at 34 inches and so it needs all the height it can get to make space for the sink drain elbow, hand pump, and the attendant plumbing with an anti-siphon loop and check valve.
 
I wouldn't have bothered to comment on something I realize many would think was picky, but this model has been so perfectly done, I, for one at least, would hate to see a compromise like this one, even if you had to look inside to see it.  
 
That said, I trust Michael's impeccable judgment in the matter.

"Tow" is "short and coarse fibers of little value separated from the longer and more valuable fibers through hackling in the manufacture of rope. Tow is occasionally used in the manufacture of inferior qualities of rope." (International Maritime Dictionary, rene de Kerchove, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand and Reinhold Co. 1961, Litton Educational Publishing]
 
"Tow" is also the short bits of fiber that break off of natural fiber rope, particularly hemp and sisal ("Manila") rope. On a large square-rigger, a lot of tow would find its way to the deck and collect in wet piles and muck things up. Hence the bosun's call, "Sweepers, man your brooms. Clean sweep down fore and aft." Another general meaning of "tow" is simply "worn out rope."
 
"Tow" was sometimes collected and saved for use in canvas pockets for padding of various sorts in rigging and so on, and for caulking material when mixed with tar to make oakum. Worn out or rotten line was often recycled into oakum as well. Quality oakum, however, was made not from lengths of worn-out line or "tow," but from new, long hemp strands. The highest quality new hemp line or oakum is made from the strong fibers from center of the stalks of the cannabis plant, which are whitish in color. (Oakum used by plumbers to caulk iron pipe joints is usually made from tarred jute or burlap.)
 
"Fibers and flyings" are what fill the air in a textile mill or rope walk and if you've ever been in a running textile mill, you will know that there is a huge cloud of fibers, little bits and pieces of broken fiber and dust, and "flyings" which are longer thin threads thrown off in the milling or spinning process, which must be continually cleaned up as they pose a large fire hazard. "Flyings" from the mills and ropewalks were used to make high quality oakum. 
 
Oakum is made by taking long fibers soaked in thick pine tar and simply twisting and rolling them into "ropes." The caulker has to prepare the oakum by unraveling lengths of the loosely twisted fiber from the loose ball (or "bale") of oakum and rolling the pine tar-soaked strands back and forth between the palm of his hand and the top of his thigh. (If you see a guy in the boatyard with his pants covered with tar on the front of his upper leg, he's a caulker! )
 
So, "The white ocham to be from flying & not from ground toes or decaid White ropes." means, "The white oakum specified here is to be made from mill flyings of the top-quality virgin white fiber of the plant and not from ground up tow or recycled rotten white hemp rope."
 
Quality oakum will result in a longer-lasting caulking job. Using old, weak fiber from worn out, rotten, or "decaid" rope will rot and decay in short order. The Admiralty wanted to use "the good stuff" because they didn't want to have to recaulk in short order because the stuff used was rotten to begin with.
 
Caulking mallet, caulking irons, and untarred "bale" of white hemp for making up oakum. See: Oakum - Wikipedia
 

I wouldn't bet on it not being noticeable, particularly when the rest of the furniture is installed. 34 inches is the rule of thumb because when a boat heels under sail, the sink has to be at least that height to be useable when the sink is on the leeward side. Many galleys have "butt belts" the user can employ to strap themselves in or even bars that drop in behind the user that can be used as a seat or to brace against in a seaway. A sink that much lower would be noticed by an experienced seaman. It might not be that big of a deal in an RV that sits level, but not in a boat that may be sailing on her ear half the time.
 
Additionally, it looks like the sink is going to be below the waterline even at 34 inches and so it needs all the height it can get to make space for the sink drain elbow, hand pump, and the attendant plumbing with an anti-siphon loop and check valve.
 
I wouldn't have bothered to comment on something I realize many would think was picky, but this model has been so perfectly done, I, for one at least, would hate to see a compromise like this one, even if you had to look inside to see it.  
 
That said, I trust Michael's impeccable judgment in the matter.

I wouldn't bet on it not being noticeable, particularly when the rest of the furniture is installed. 34 inches is the rule of thumb because when a boat heels under sail, the sink has to be at least that height to be useable when the sink is on the leeward side. Many galleys have "butt belts" the user can employ to strap themselves in or even bars that drop in behind the user that can be used as a seat or to brace against in a seaway. A sink that much lower would be noticed by an experienced seaman. It might not be that big of a deal in an RV that sits level, but not in a boat that may be sailing on her ear half the time.
 
Additionally, it looks like the sink is going to be below the waterline even at 34 inches and so it needs all the height it can get to make space for the sink drain elbow, hand pump, and the attendant plumbing with an anti-siphon loop and check valve.
 
I wouldn't have bothered to comment on something I realize many would think was picky, but this model has been so perfectly done, I, for one at least, would hate to see a compromise like this one, even if you had to look inside to see it.  
 
That said, I trust Michael's impeccable judgment in the matter.

"Tow" is "short and coarse fibers of little value separated from the longer and more valuable fibers through hackling in the manufacture of rope. Tow is occasionally used in the manufacture of inferior qualities of rope." (International Maritime Dictionary, rene de Kerchove, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand and Reinhold Co. 1961, Litton Educational Publishing]
 
"Tow" is also the short bits of fiber that break off of natural fiber rope, particularly hemp and sisal ("Manila") rope. On a large square-rigger, a lot of tow would find its way to the deck and collect in wet piles and muck things up. Hence the bosun's call, "Sweepers, man your brooms. Clean sweep down fore and aft." Another general meaning of "tow" is simply "worn out rope."
 
"Tow" was sometimes collected and saved for use in canvas pockets for padding of various sorts in rigging and so on, and for caulking material when mixed with tar to make oakum. Worn out or rotten line was often recycled into oakum as well. Quality oakum, however, was made not from lengths of worn-out line or "tow," but from new, long hemp strands. The highest quality new hemp line or oakum is made from the strong fibers from center of the stalks of the cannabis plant, which are whitish in color. (Oakum used by plumbers to caulk iron pipe joints is usually made from tarred jute or burlap.)
 
"Fibers and flyings" are what fill the air in a textile mill or rope walk and if you've ever been in a running textile mill, you will know that there is a huge cloud of fibers, little bits and pieces of broken fiber and dust, and "flyings" which are longer thin threads thrown off in the milling or spinning process, which must be continually cleaned up as they pose a large fire hazard. "Flyings" from the mills and ropewalks were used to make high quality oakum. 
 
Oakum is made by taking long fibers soaked in thick pine tar and simply twisting and rolling them into "ropes." The caulker has to prepare the oakum by unraveling lengths of the loosely twisted fiber from the loose ball (or "bale") of oakum and rolling the pine tar-soaked strands back and forth between the palm of his hand and the top of his thigh. (If you see a guy in the boatyard with his pants covered with tar on the front of his upper leg, he's a caulker! )
 
So, "The white ocham to be from flying & not from ground toes or decaid White ropes." means, "The white oakum specified here is to be made from mill flyings of the top-quality virgin white fiber of the plant and not from ground up tow or recycled rotten white hemp rope."
 
Quality oakum will result in a longer-lasting caulking job. Using old, weak fiber from worn out, rotten, or "decaid" rope will rot and decay in short order. The Admiralty wanted to use "the good stuff" because they didn't want to have to recaulk in short order because the stuff used was rotten to begin with.
 
Caulking mallet, caulking irons, and untarred "bale" of white hemp for making up oakum. See: Oakum - Wikipedia
 

Time to come over to the dark side, guys! She wouldn't be a daunting task to scratch-build a model of her. Why wait for a kit? You can do it. The complete plans are available on line for free, even in TIFF format, so they can be enlarged for modeling use.  These plans were made as part of the Historic American Engineering Record ("HAER") Available from the Library of Congress on line.: Title Sheet - Schooner C.A. THAYER, Hyde Street Pier, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA | Library of Congress (loc.gov)  
 
T

"Tow" is "short and coarse fibers of little value separated from the longer and more valuable fibers through hackling in the manufacture of rope. Tow is occasionally used in the manufacture of inferior qualities of rope." (International Maritime Dictionary, rene de Kerchove, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand and Reinhold Co. 1961, Litton Educational Publishing]
 
"Tow" is also the short bits of fiber that break off of natural fiber rope, particularly hemp and sisal ("Manila") rope. On a large square-rigger, a lot of tow would find its way to the deck and collect in wet piles and muck things up. Hence the bosun's call, "Sweepers, man your brooms. Clean sweep down fore and aft." Another general meaning of "tow" is simply "worn out rope."
 
"Tow" was sometimes collected and saved for use in canvas pockets for padding of various sorts in rigging and so on, and for caulking material when mixed with tar to make oakum. Worn out or rotten line was often recycled into oakum as well. Quality oakum, however, was made not from lengths of worn-out line or "tow," but from new, long hemp strands. The highest quality new hemp line or oakum is made from the strong fibers from center of the stalks of the cannabis plant, which are whitish in color. (Oakum used by plumbers to caulk iron pipe joints is usually made from tarred jute or burlap.)
 
"Fibers and flyings" are what fill the air in a textile mill or rope walk and if you've ever been in a running textile mill, you will know that there is a huge cloud of fibers, little bits and pieces of broken fiber and dust, and "flyings" which are longer thin threads thrown off in the milling or spinning process, which must be continually cleaned up as they pose a large fire hazard. "Flyings" from the mills and ropewalks were used to make high quality oakum. 
 
Oakum is made by taking long fibers soaked in thick pine tar and simply twisting and rolling them into "ropes." The caulker has to prepare the oakum by unraveling lengths of the loosely twisted fiber from the loose ball (or "bale") of oakum and rolling the pine tar-soaked strands back and forth between the palm of his hand and the top of his thigh. (If you see a guy in the boatyard with his pants covered with tar on the front of his upper leg, he's a caulker! )
 
So, "The white ocham to be from flying & not from ground toes or decaid White ropes." means, "The white oakum specified here is to be made from mill flyings of the top-quality virgin white fiber of the plant and not from ground up tow or recycled rotten white hemp rope."
 
Quality oakum will result in a longer-lasting caulking job. Using old, weak fiber from worn out, rotten, or "decaid" rope will rot and decay in short order. The Admiralty wanted to use "the good stuff" because they didn't want to have to recaulk in short order because the stuff used was rotten to begin with.
 
Caulking mallet, caulking irons, and untarred "bale" of white hemp for making up oakum. See: Oakum - Wikipedia
 

"Tow" is "short and coarse fibers of little value separated from the longer and more valuable fibers through hackling in the manufacture of rope. Tow is occasionally used in the manufacture of inferior qualities of rope." (International Maritime Dictionary, rene de Kerchove, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand and Reinhold Co. 1961, Litton Educational Publishing]
 
"Tow" is also the short bits of fiber that break off of natural fiber rope, particularly hemp and sisal ("Manila") rope. On a large square-rigger, a lot of tow would find its way to the deck and collect in wet piles and muck things up. Hence the bosun's call, "Sweepers, man your brooms. Clean sweep down fore and aft." Another general meaning of "tow" is simply "worn out rope."
 
"Tow" was sometimes collected and saved for use in canvas pockets for padding of various sorts in rigging and so on, and for caulking material when mixed with tar to make oakum. Worn out or rotten line was often recycled into oakum as well. Quality oakum, however, was made not from lengths of worn-out line or "tow," but from new, long hemp strands. The highest quality new hemp line or oakum is made from the strong fibers from center of the stalks of the cannabis plant, which are whitish in color. (Oakum used by plumbers to caulk iron pipe joints is usually made from tarred jute or burlap.)
 
"Fibers and flyings" are what fill the air in a textile mill or rope walk and if you've ever been in a running textile mill, you will know that there is a huge cloud of fibers, little bits and pieces of broken fiber and dust, and "flyings" which are longer thin threads thrown off in the milling or spinning process, which must be continually cleaned up as they pose a large fire hazard. "Flyings" from the mills and ropewalks were used to make high quality oakum. 
 
Oakum is made by taking long fibers soaked in thick pine tar and simply twisting and rolling them into "ropes." The caulker has to prepare the oakum by unraveling lengths of the loosely twisted fiber from the loose ball (or "bale") of oakum and rolling the pine tar-soaked strands back and forth between the palm of his hand and the top of his thigh. (If you see a guy in the boatyard with his pants covered with tar on the front of his upper leg, he's a caulker! )
 
So, "The white ocham to be from flying & not from ground toes or decaid White ropes." means, "The white oakum specified here is to be made from mill flyings of the top-quality virgin white fiber of the plant and not from ground up tow or recycled rotten white hemp rope."
 
Quality oakum will result in a longer-lasting caulking job. Using old, weak fiber from worn out, rotten, or "decaid" rope will rot and decay in short order. The Admiralty wanted to use "the good stuff" because they didn't want to have to recaulk in short order because the stuff used was rotten to begin with.
 
Caulking mallet, caulking irons, and untarred "bale" of white hemp for making up oakum. See: Oakum - Wikipedia
 

"Tow" is "short and coarse fibers of little value separated from the longer and more valuable fibers through hackling in the manufacture of rope. Tow is occasionally used in the manufacture of inferior qualities of rope." (International Maritime Dictionary, rene de Kerchove, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand and Reinhold Co. 1961, Litton Educational Publishing]
 
"Tow" is also the short bits of fiber that break off of natural fiber rope, particularly hemp and sisal ("Manila") rope. On a large square-rigger, a lot of tow would find its way to the deck and collect in wet piles and muck things up. Hence the bosun's call, "Sweepers, man your brooms. Clean sweep down fore and aft." Another general meaning of "tow" is simply "worn out rope."
 
"Tow" was sometimes collected and saved for use in canvas pockets for padding of various sorts in rigging and so on, and for caulking material when mixed with tar to make oakum. Worn out or rotten line was often recycled into oakum as well. Quality oakum, however, was made not from lengths of worn-out line or "tow," but from new, long hemp strands. The highest quality new hemp line or oakum is made from the strong fibers from center of the stalks of the cannabis plant, which are whitish in color. (Oakum used by plumbers to caulk iron pipe joints is usually made from tarred jute or burlap.)
 
"Fibers and flyings" are what fill the air in a textile mill or rope walk and if you've ever been in a running textile mill, you will know that there is a huge cloud of fibers, little bits and pieces of broken fiber and dust, and "flyings" which are longer thin threads thrown off in the milling or spinning process, which must be continually cleaned up as they pose a large fire hazard. "Flyings" from the mills and ropewalks were used to make high quality oakum. 
 
Oakum is made by taking long fibers soaked in thick pine tar and simply twisting and rolling them into "ropes." The caulker has to prepare the oakum by unraveling lengths of the loosely twisted fiber from the loose ball (or "bale") of oakum and rolling the pine tar-soaked strands back and forth between the palm of his hand and the top of his thigh. (If you see a guy in the boatyard with his pants covered with tar on the front of his upper leg, he's a caulker! )
 
So, "The white ocham to be from flying & not from ground toes or decaid White ropes." means, "The white oakum specified here is to be made from mill flyings of the top-quality virgin white fiber of the plant and not from ground up tow or recycled rotten white hemp rope."
 
Quality oakum will result in a longer-lasting caulking job. Using old, weak fiber from worn out, rotten, or "decaid" rope will rot and decay in short order. The Admiralty wanted to use "the good stuff" because they didn't want to have to recaulk in short order because the stuff used was rotten to begin with.
 
Caulking mallet, caulking irons, and untarred "bale" of white hemp for making up oakum. See: Oakum - Wikipedia